It’s been a few weeks since I did a gun news post. Weekly is just an indicator that it’s not monthly. It doesn’t mean I have to do one every week, right? Unfortunately I got a call from my cousin informing me that my Uncle had passed away quite unexpectedly during the night. In truth I was raised calling them Aunt and Uncle but they are not blood relations. He was my dad’s best friend from childhood. But other than my own father, he probably had more impact on who I am today than any other male figure in my life. I did not grow up in a gun owning family. He is the reason I took up shooting and the gun rights cause. If he had not been the influence on my life that he was, none of you would be reading this blog. So things might be a bit scarce this week.

I have to agree with Miguel on this one… Everytown is reaching. NRA doesn’t comment on a lot of things, and they aren’t obligated to respond to every single person who is ever shot. I do think NRA missed an opportunity to show they don’t just care about OFWGs, but this is ridiculous. Somehow I believe Shannon Watts is behind this one.

Over at Reason: “Why Did a Conservative Judge Uphold an Assault Weapons Ban?” Judicial minimalism are judges abrogating their responsibility to the Constitution and the people. It forwards this silly notion that the silly people we elect and send to Washington somehow so represent that who needs any kind of pesky constitution? It’s time for the dinosaurs who practice this travesty retire from the court.

38 Responses to “Weekly Gun News – Edition 61”

If I can speak to the whole Carry Guard issue and share my thoughts?
It is a major PR blunder. The late announcement for the annual meeting, kicking out other venders last minute, the picture of the lead guy with his finger on the trigger, the whole phase 1 no 1911 issue? Just a disaster. NOW add to that the Training Division has nothing to do with it, no NRA Instructors or Training Counselors are involved or been briefed on the training. Carry Guard advised me they would contact me in June with Instructor info, nothing yet.

The NRA Training division has nothing to do with this program?? WTF!?!!? It is my belief that this is a clusterfuck of the highest level.

As far as I can tell no one has bought it?
If it was done right, it could have been awesome and an added benefit to membership. I think Wayne got sold a bridge to no where.

Just thinking aloud, could the problem be that like Trump’s Breitbart crowd, they only have PR sense for one type of mindset, for which it works brilliantly, but not for any other mindset, for which it’s a total fail?

Actually the Kochs pulled back from Breitbart, pissing off the Breitbart crowd no end. It is speculated that is because the Kochs’ businesses profit from immigration, and they know it. So far it is somewhat harder to exploit native-born Americans.

Google “Koch” AND “Breitbart” and check out how many relatively recent Breitbart articles badmouth the Kochs.

I dislike being misled that someone is a drop-dead pro-gun advocate, then have them do nothing for the gun issue after they’ve used me and my resources to advance the issues they really care about. They keep genuine pro-gun efforts from gaining traction, while exploiting gun owners to advance candidates whose primary bag is, say, anti-labor or anti-abortion. Those issues will be advanced while gun rights suck hind teat. That is, if they get any teat at all.

First I have to give you sincere thanks for giving me repeated openings to preach the primary message I want to communicate: Most (though not all) of the people you think are our friends, are not our friends, or are very conditional friends, and only use the gun issue as a decoy to get gun owners to support their “social conservative” candidates who will advance the issues they really care about. And in some yet-to-be-imagined scenario that involved trading our issue for what they value more, they would stab us in the back in an instant.

I know, because it was done to me personally.

But if you want current proof, the NRA went balls-out to support a moron presidential candidate who had formerly been an advocate for gun control, until another faction made that Orange Power Seeker a better offer. You can fairly argue that Hillary was a bigger threat, but in case you haven’t noticed, the election is over, and Hillary is now nothing but a big-mouth liberal among a host of such. And yet the NRA is still going balls out to defend their man; why is that? I might even argue that Pence might make a more authentic, SCOTUS-Justice-nominating, pro-gun president, but for some reason it is very, very important to the NRA that their endorsed-in-the-first-five-minutes president stay in place.

I respect your right to hate on libertarians. Just don’t pretend it is about guns. You seem to think you are the only one to understand about fair weather friends (Hint: you are not.) and thus you embrace research by active enemies like Soros.

The comical thing is, I am one. The thing people like you would miss is, that I am one by the definition extant 25 – 35 years ago, before the Cruzes and Rand Pauls coopted the word.

And so if you mean I hate those dickwads for doing that, yeah, I’ll own that I hate those “libertarians” for the poseurs that they are. But I was taken in by Rand Paul’s father, and I’m not repeating that mistake.

And guns are only a subset of the right of anyone to possess anything they want and can obtain by fair trading.

It’s my understanding that the idea behind banning 1911s was the desire to have guns that had 12 or 15 round capacity. If this were the case, I couldn’t help but wonder “Why not just require a certain amount of capacity, and let the students decide how that capacity is filled?”

Requiring a high minimum capacity will automatically exclude most 1911s, but it will also mean that anyone who has a high-capacity 1911 won’t have any problems with the outright ban.

(And if it’s *not* a capacity issue — in particular, if their training allows for other models of guns with 7- or 8-round capacity — then I don’t see why it makes sense to specifically exclude 1911s.)

Why was our new conservative DOJ even appealing the Binderup decision? It seems like a very quick win for us if they would merely withdraw their appeals for some of these cases where their position is anti-gun.

To answer your question, you need to make sure you understand the difference between issues and arguments.

A court, either state or federal, can only resolve the issues that are properly before it. If, for example, a person appeals a case to the Supreme Court, but fails to properly preserve and present an issue, the court is without power to consider it. The issue will be “waived,” and not considered by the court.

If, however, an issue is properly before the court, the court can decide the matter based on whatever law it wants. It is not bound to only consider the arguments presented by the lawyers. For example, if there is some statute that controls the matter, and neither side presented it to the court for its consideration, but the judge knows about it, the judge apply the statute and decide the case that way.

Bureaucratic inertia, no doubt, combined with holdovers from the previous administration and the current administration being preoccupied with attacks from fake news, all of which means that AG Sessions missed this one.

“Police departments can either pay for their officers to have decent training, or they can pay that money out in settlements.”

The difference I’d suggest, is that municipalities prefer settlements over line-items like training expenses.

Settlements can be blamed on others — like Those People if it was one of those people that was injured or killed, or, whoever the latest manifestation of BLM is, or even lousy, shyster lawyers. Police training is a budget line-item that elected officials have to choose to spend.

That can be further complicated if municipal liability insurance pays for some or all of the judgment. Then the cost in insurance rate increases gets kicked down the road, where at worst the next crop of officials will get blamed for approving it. More likely officials will get to shrug their shoulders and say “That’s inflation — it can’t be helped.”

It seems like the NRA is trying to be more like AARP or AAA with additional service offerings. A mistake IMHO. It just places another filter/motivation on advocacy positions..”How will this impact our revenue?”.

“It seems like the NRA is trying to be more like AARP or AAA with additional service offerings…”

It’s not that new. It just seems to be proliferating.

What year was it that the NRA got into offering “cancer insurance,” and briefly lost its shirt when it discovered it was on the hook for medical expenses that exceeded a certain level?

But who knew health insurance was so hard? ;-)

And remember when the NRA got into flogging LifeLock, in the same year the outfit was under indictment for consumer fraud in a couple states?

I’m just picking on the NRA because it is the subject at hand. I have never seen an organization that, once it made fund raising a priority, didn’t eventually make it their first priority, at the expense of virtually abandoning their cause. ‘Tis an enigma.

Meanwhile, stick a needle in your arm, and while you’re feeling real good, believe that opioids won’t become the first priority in your life. And think about temples and money-changers.

Sorry about the loss of your gun mentor, we are grateful for the effect that he had on you, and it was good meeting you in person long ago at the Rendezvous. Not sure there is going to be another GBR.

Once I had completed NRA Certified RSO Training, the NRA really started to sends me opportunities to buy various insurances as a “trainer,” even though I am just a lowly RSO and the Club insurance covers me…

Just thinking out loud again, a subtlety of our political system (if subtle is the right word) is that you sometimes have to strategize beyond the next governor/president — if that is ever possible. No matter how good you think a candidate is for your issue, if they turn out to be bad (or just unpopular) on every other issue, they can almost assure the election of someone from the opposition in the following election — and your issue may not make enough progress during your man’s tenure to provide a buffer.

Unless the Democrats really screw up in NJ, they will win via a broad backlash against Christie. It won’t necessarily be rational, but it will be reality.

That’s just part of my long-time theme of, candidates who talk good shit about our gun issue, aren’t necessarily the key to moving forward with a long-term, pro-gun strategy. (That is probably most worthy of consideration during the primary season.)

On the article over at Reason.com on why a conservative judge upheld an “assault weapon” ban:

The author mischaracterizes the conservative position on judicial deference. Legal conservatives have never advocated judicial deference to laws that violate enumerated constitutional rights—that is tantamount to denying judicial review altogether. What we object to is judges creating new nontextual “fundamental” rights and using those rights to invalidate democratically-enacted laws—especially when those rights are not enumerated in the Constitution or even deeply rooted in our nation’s history and tradition (i.e., consensus natural rights), but rather reflect the judges’ personal political preferences.

Judge Wilkinson’s concurrence slays the straw man. While I agree that judges should not add to the “growing list” of subjects taken off the legislative table by recognition of new unenumerated constitutional rights, there is an enumerated list of constitutional rights that courts rightly should enforce against legislatures. The Second Amendment is one of them. With all due respect to Judge Wilkinson, this was the wrong case for “judicial deference.”

Judge Wilkinson voted to uphold the ban not because of judicial deference, but because he believes the right to keep and bear arms is a second-class right.

I’m not so sure I view the potential CCDW changes as a good thing. Blue state, an appointed board specifically for CCDW permits, creating a new bureaucracy, and the fact that the board seeks to exempt itself from FOIA….

I’d rather the AG’s office keep the process. Typical government. They’re complaining about being overloaded by people wanting to carry, so instead of simply removing restrictions and streamlining the process, they’re creating more bureaucracy.

There just seems to me to be a ton of potential for abuse under the new system. Although it does look like folks who already have a DE CCDW would be somewhat “grandfathered” in.